iSawToday – The Coolest Thing I Saw Today on the Web

I was recently planning a January 08 trip to visit a friend in Phoenix and ended up being plunged into a jungle of travel websites all promising me the best fare, what was I to do?

The Answer: Spend several days searching and monitoring the all too standard travel sites; Hotwire, Orbitz, Expedia, and Travelocity for the best flight deal to AZ.  In the process I came across several tools that were a great help which I wanted to share with everyone.

1. Farecast – http://www.farecast.com

Farecast allows you to search flights from all of the major aforementioned travel sites but at the same time provides you a handy historical graph of prices for your trip.

Lucky me! I happened to be searching for my ticket around the 6th of December (the low spot on the graph) Farecast correctly predicted that prices were rising (holiday traffic no doubt) and I got in on a great deal; $202 from Milwaukee to Phoenix on Midwest. 

2. Kayak – http://www.kayak.com

Kayak has been around for several years now and has helped me find the best fare on several trips.  That said, there’s very little special about Kayak other than it searches all the major travel sites and airline direct sites to  show you the best fares.  It’s a good site to check out if you’re looking for a ballpark price but I often find myself heading over to :

3. Orbitz – http://www.orbitz.com

Orbitz is just like the other travel sites out there but I find their interface well organized and the process of booking painless.  Furthermore Orbitz offers a grid-view of the search results

this is what I mean when I say organized, it’s easy for me to find flights that match my search and compare the cheapest with preferred airlines (Midwest & Frontier). 

 Added 12/20 – I just read a review from TechCrunc that taked about www.Mobissimo.com as another great site to get travel info, and although my trip is already planned I’ll be sure to try this one next as it looks great.

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